Sunday, May 24, 2015

Pipeline that leaked wasn't equipped with auto shut-off

Pipeline that leaked wasn't equipped with auto shut-off

Workers prepare an oil containment boom at Refugio State Beach,
north of Goleta, Calif., Thursday, May 21, 2015. More than 7,700 gallons
of oil has been raked, skimmed and vacuumed from a spill that stretched
across about 9 miles of California coast, just a fraction of the
sticky, stinking goo that escaped from a broken pipeline, officials
said.AP

BRIAN MELLEYThe Associated Press

Published: Saturday, May 23, 2015 at 9:00 p.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, May 23, 2015 at 9:49 p.m.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The pipeline that leaked thousands of gallons
of oil on the California coast was the only pipe of its kind in the
county not required to have an automatic shut-off valve because of a
court fight nearly three decades ago, a county official said.

The original owner of the
pipeline skirted the Santa Barbara County requirement by successfully
arguing in court in the late 1980s that it should be subject to federal
oversight because the pipeline is part of an interstate network, said
Kevin Drude, deputy director of the county's Energy and Minerals
Division. Auto shut-off valves are not required by federal regulators.

"It's the only major pipeline that doesn't have auto shut-off," Drude said. "For us, it's routine."

Federal
regulators are investigating the cause of Tuesday's leak that spilled
up to 105,000 gallons of crude oil from an underground pipe into a
culvert and as much as 21,000 gallons into the ocean at Refugio State
Beach. The spill killed untold numbers of fish, at least five pelicans
and a sea lion. It also mired other wildlife, including an elephant
seal, in the muck.

Plains
All American Pipeline was still draining the pipe and trying to locate
the leak Saturday. Federal regulators ordered the company to remove the
damaged section and send it to a lab for tests on the metal, along with a
series of other steps before it could resume pumping oil through the
pipe to inland refineries.

Plains
said the pipeline had one valve to shut it down if oil flowed in the
opposite direction and three valves controlled by operators in its
Midland, Texas, control room.

Plains
defended its people approach to manually shutting down the system,
saying it's the standard across the country for liquid pipelines.

"It is much safer for
operators who understand the operations of the pipeline to shut it down
following a planned sequence of steps than for computer to automatically
close a valve on oil that is traveling in confined space at high
pressure," Patrick Hodgins, the company's senior director of safety,
said Saturday. "This is all standard operating procedures within our
industry."

While it's not
known if an auto shut-off valve would have detected the leak and reduced
the size of the spill, environmentalists have criticized the lack of
such a device, saying it could have averted or minimized the disaster.

"Everyone
is pretty mystified why the pipeline didn't automatically shut down
when the leak occurred," said Linda Krop, chief counsel of the
Environmental Defense Center.

Santa
Barbara County regulations sometimes exceed state and federal
standards, requiring additional environmental analysis or imposing
conditions to further protect health and the environment, Drude said.
One additional requirement is a valve that can detect changes consistent
with a leak and automatically shut down.

The
county successfully fought another operator that didn't want to install
automatic shutdown valves on a pipeline from an offshore drilling
platform, Drude said.

However,
when there was a leak on that line in 1997, an operator overrode the
automatic shutdown, and it continued spewing crude into the Pacific
Ocean a couple miles from shore. The 10,000 gallon spill fouled 21 miles
of shoreline and killed more than 150 birds.

Richard
Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc., which investigates pipeline
incidents, said such valves aren't always effective, though newer, more
sophisticated "smart" models provide more accurate signals that can
trigger shutdowns.

A
Plains employee discovered the leak early Tuesday afternoon, about three
hours after mechanical issues with the pipeline, according to the
company. The pipe was restarted for about 20 minutes before a pump
failed and then it was shut down because of changes in pressure.

The company said it was looking into whether those earlier problems led to the leak.

A surge in pressure from starting up a system could cause a leak or exacerbate one, but it's too soon to tell, Kuprewicz said.

"In
the past, surge pressures have caused pipes to rupture. But there were
other failures, too," he said, speaking in general and not about the
Plains incident. "If that were the case, that would become fairly
evident ... pretty quickly."

Plains
All American subsidiaries have reported at least 223 accidents along
their lines and spilled a combined 864,300 gallons of hazardous liquids
since 2006, according to federal records. The company has been subject
to 25 enforcement actions by federal regulators and tallied damages
topping $32 million.

The company has defended its record, saying accidental releases have decreased as its pipelines have increased to 17,800 miles.

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